


waterbender

by Hannah (hannahoftheinternet)



Series: the world's most powerful demigods [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, and thinking about annabeth, i love my son the most powerful demigod alive, percy practicing his powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 00:16:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21466903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahoftheinternet/pseuds/Hannah
Summary: Percy takes some time to practice using his powers and reflect (ha).Set a couple weeks after The Battle of the Labyrinth.
Series: the world's most powerful demigods [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1547392
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	waterbender

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing PJO fanfiction again. Bet you never expected this.

My mom was out late, doing something-or-other with Paul Blofis that I probably don’t want to know about. That worked fine for me—lately I’d mostly just wanted to be alone, and there was a good chance what I was about to do was at least going to destroy the bathroom, if not the entire apartment.

I stood at the sink in the tiny bathroom of our apartment, holding the huge yellow plastic bowl that we put our Halloween candy in every year. I felt kind of stupid staring at my reflection in the mirror—a zit had popped up on my forehead and I couldn’t stop looking at it—but I heard Annabeth’s voice in my head saying, “Practice makes perfect, Percy,” so I figured I should probably go through with this.

I turned on the faucet and filled the bowl about halfway with cold water. I couldn’t resist sticking my hands in the water for a couple seconds, because it was August in Brooklyn and our AC had conked out the week before. The chill felt amazing against my skin; I didn’t want to take my hands out of the water. Eventually I did, though, and it only took a little bit of mental effort to slough the remaining drops of water off my hands back into the bowl so that I was completely dry again. A brief burst of  _ wow that was cool _ went through me. I had been using my powers for more mundane things since I got back from camp, but I always felt a little twinge when I did. That had been happening to me more and more lately, like despite everything that had happened to me, I could control water, and it was  _ awesome _ .

I looked down at myself reflected in the bowl, the surface of the water rippling and twisting so that it looked like my face was fractured. I thought about Narcissus, the guy who fell in love with his own reflection in the water and drowned himself trying to kiss it. He must have been pretty stupid, I decided, because my hellhound couldn’t recognize her own reflection, and Mrs. O’Leary was the smartest dog I’d ever met.

Thinking about Mrs. O’Leary led me to thinking about Daedalus, which led me to thinking about camp, which made me homesick. It’s funny how you can be homesick for different places, depending on where you are. Camp Half-Blood was as much home as my mom’s apartment was, and I missed both at different times of the year. Eventually, camp led me back to Annabeth, and I remembered why I was standing at the bathroom sink in the first place. My ADHD had conveniently led me in a circle.

Annabeth and I had been emailing back and forth almost every day since the summer session of camp ended, and she had developed this fixation on my powers after I made Mount Saint Helens erupt. “What you did showed how powerful you are,” she had written, “but I wonder if you could do similar things in controlled settings if you practice more.” I told her I was open to suggestions, so she sent me this huge list in Ancient Greek of things to try, organized by “estimated difficulty” (her words). I pretended to be mad that she was assigning me homework over summer vacation, but I actually thought it was pretty cute.

The thing on the list that interested me the most was hydrokinetic combat, which was exactly what it sounded like: using water to fight. Whenever I thought about that, I imagined Katara from  _ Avatar: The Last Airbender _ . I struck a waterbending pose, looked at myself in the mirror, and burst out laughing.

“Okay,” I said out loud, “focus. Get it together.” That didn’t really help much, and I spent another couple minutes making faces at my reflection and poking my zit until I actually convinced myself to do something productive.

Annabeth had figured that if I could learn to use my powers in a more controlled way when I was fighting, if I could fuse water manipulation with my natural gift for swordsmanship, I’d be almost unstoppable on the battlefield. “I already am,” I’d joked in my response, and I could practically see her smile and her exasperated eye roll as I wrote it.

The thing we decided I should try first was moving water, first in small amounts, then more, until it was almost an extension of myself and I could manipulate it without thinking. I was convinced that would take years and years to master, but Annabeth said she’d been studying the records of other demigods who had elemental powers—children of Hephaestus who could wield fire, the daughter of a minor wind god who was notorious for pushing her enemies off mountains with hurricane-level gusts. She told me that if I practiced, it would only take a few months.

Standing in the bathroom of my apartment with a yellow plastic bowl on the counter, I realized that this was  _ Annabeth’s _ power at its clearest. She was forming strategies, guiding me. At its core, training me to use my powers was a battle plan.

I started simple: I willed the water to rise into the air, leaving the bowl bone-dry. A fishhook dug itself into my gut, but it wasn’t painful. It felt normal, right. I had taken a few lessons on using my powers at camp, but since I was the only child of Poseidon most of the counselors had ever dealt with, no one really knew what to do with me. A girl from the Apollo cabin who was considered the strongest commander of sunlight at camp told me that everyone felt something when using their powers. Tight muscles, dizziness, but as long as you weren’t overworking yourself, it shouldn’t hurt. That was how I knew I was doing okay.

A shudder ran through me at the pressure, and the bubble of water in the air wobbled dangerously. I caught it just in time to keep it from splashing all over the tiled floor of the bathroom. Forcibly, I pulled my attention back to the task at hand. If my mind wandered while I was fighting, that was it. Game over. Hyperactivity was my battle instinct, but a short attention span could get me killed. I’d already had a few close calls.

There I went again! I focused hard on the sphere of water hovering obediently a few feet from my nose. I could see myself reflected back in it, which was weird and cool at the same time, like the rest of my life. With a thought, I sent it in a slow circle around the bathroom. I turned with it, both to watch its progress and to make sure I didn’t accidentally smash it into anything and soak the wall or the cabinet where we kept our medicine and Band-Aids. I didn’t hit anything, which was great, and brought the sphere back to its resting position over the bathroom sink. If I squinted, I could see shapes in the ripples and waves, like the water was speaking to me.

I did it again, in the opposite direction this time, and I didn’t turn to watch its progress. I’d been using this bathroom since I was a kid. I trusted my mind to know its way around. I didn’t hit anything the second time, either, and that gave me courage. I figured, since I could do that with almost no practice, I could try other stuff with the same effect. And if I messed up, so what? I could practice as much as I wanted to.

I willed the water back into the bowl for the time being and stuck my hand in my pocket, my fingers instantly curling around Riptide. That was cool too; my pen appeared in the pocket of whatever I was wearing, even if I hadn’t moved it there. Annabeth wondered how the magic of it worked (she had a theory the pen was tied to my life force), but Chiron wouldn’t tell her anything about it. I remembered the third time she’d asked and gotten no response about it; she had fumed for the rest of the day about Chiron “inhibiting her.” 

Pulling Riptide out of my pocket and uncapping it, I didn’t take my eyes off the ball of water, even as I felt Riptide take its true form in my hand. The bronze blade shimmered to life, and my blood began to sing. Feeling the familiar weight of my sword in my hand was enough to make me itch for a fight; my life had been surprisingly quiet since the summer session of camp ended. It made me wonder if the monsters were holding back, waiting for me to let my guard down. My fingers curled tighter around the hilt of my sword. I imagined slicing Anaklusmos through a line of monsters, watching them explode into golden dust. A bolt of adrenaline shot down my spine at the thought.

_ Chill _ , I told myself.  _ We’re just practicing. _

I wanted to try something I had only seen once before: in the Battle of the Labyrinth (it had an official name and everything, which I guess meant we were really at war), a nine-year-old daughter of Hephaestus had flung a bolt of fire from her war hammer straight through a dracena. It had been the coolest thing ever; her bed in the infirmary had been crowded with people congratulating her after the battle was over. I wanted to see if I could do the same thing—shoot water from my sword. That would not only be awesome, but super helpful.

I lifted the tip of Riptide so that it pointed into the tiny shower tucked in the corner of the bathroom. That way I wouldn’t splatter water where water isn’t supposed to be. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I trusted my sword, so I slashed downward and yelled, “Hyah!” at the top of my lungs.

Nothing happened.

Weakly, I said, “Hyah?” and water spattered all over the bathroom floor, instantly soaking the rug I was standing on top of. I groaned, the rug squelching under my feet as I shifted my weight. Even though I’m the son of Poseidon and water is kind of my  _ thing _ , I hate wet carpet. It’s the same with socks; I just can’t wear wet socks. I can’t stand it. I was wondering how I would explain this to my mom when I remembered something else from Annabeth’s list:  _ dehydration _ . She figured that if I could get something wet with my powers, I could make it dry again by reversing the process. It sounded crazy to me, but by toes felt cold and disgusting, so I was willing to try anything.

I concentrated on the water seeping into the fibers of the rug, imagining I could feel every molecule of it. Maybe I could. It felt like I could. The water responded to me instantly. Although I didn’t need to, I jerked my head up a little, willing the water to rise up from the rug. It did, leaving the rug under my feet perfectly dry. The water, slightly grimy from rug dirt, hovered in a messy sphere, waiting for my next instruction. I grinned stupidly, impressed by my own success. I couldn’t wait to tell Annabeth. With a thought, the water sent itself hurling down the drain in the shower, and I released my hold on it.

The water that had randomly rained from the sky had come from the yellow plastic bowl; I hadn’t just created it from nowhere. That would be even cooler. I was wondering what to do next when I heard the door open and my mom say loudly, “Percy! I’m home!” I grinned and peeked my head out the bathroom door. My mom looked as happy as I’d ever seen her. She was smiling from ear to ear, and her cheeks had a pink blush, like she’d been laughing a lot. Suddenly, I felt grateful for Paul Blofis. “What did you do while I was gone?”

I did this stupid exaggerated wink that made her giggle. “I’ll show you tomorrow.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Percy, what did you do?”

“Nothing!” I said, putting my hands up. “Honest, it’s really cool.”

Okay,” she said, and ruffled my hair. “Go to bed, okay?”

I nodded, mind already composing words for my message. “I just have to write an email to Annabeth.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked! This will be the first of four works in the series, exploring Percy and Nico's powers and abilities. I love my sons.
> 
> Comments are a writer's best friend!


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